


That's Not a Cat

by asimplewalk



Series: Prompt Jar [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Encounter Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Player-typical Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 11:36:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3527933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asimplewalk/pseuds/asimplewalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky gets a new past-time that already has a small cult following in the Tower. And then Clint, Bruce, and Rhodey show that they have maybe spent too many hours around the table over the years. </p><p>And there is a really terrible joke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's Not a Cat

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd prompt from [ my tumblr askbox](http://www.crownsandashes.tumblr.com/ask) that I later found out _was_ all Spencer's fault: "Fis starter: Is that a bugbear?"
> 
> I think this was, in the end, the best approach.

“What’s this?” Bucky was sitting crosslegged on the floor of Bruce’s living room in front of a coffee table full of small figurines. 

“That’s a Carrion Crawler.” Bruce’s ever patient voice was quiet and soothing, and it wasn’t the first time that Bucky had hidden himself away where the scientist was in order to calm himself after a particularly harrowing time around Tony while the other man poked and prodded at him, his arm, and the tac suit that he hadn’t yet allowed to be upgraded.

“And that one?” He wasn’t touching any of them, mostly as he couldn't tell which ones were fully dry and which ones were just glossy-coated. So he was pointing with the graphite end of a yellow pencil with a stubby, almost-gone eraser. 

“Bulette.” Bruce paused for a moment in thought. “Would you like to read through the monster manuals sometime?”

“There’s more than one?’ Bucky looked up suddenly, surprise writ across his features. There was a little bit of excitement there. 

Before the mild-mannered man painting minis could answer, there was a small knock at the door, and a tired, frustrated looking blond with a mashed nose and a lot of scars poked his head inside. “Partner dungeon-planning meeting?”

“Sure, we might have a new player yet. No need to knock when you practically live here, anyway. Come in, please.” Bruce waved the man in, and since both remailed fairly quiet, Bucky didn’t so much mind the newcomer. Went back to studying the figures on the table.

Clint immediately headed into the kitchen, and nearly fifteen minutes later, walked in with a pot of tea and three of the deep, round, handleless cups typical to a Chinese tea set that the pot was also a part of. “Okay so I’m a bastard and am not following proper tea service, I know, but I’m tired and I just want to talk shop that isn’t dead things or hitting things in real life for a while.”

“I can commiserate with that.” Bruce took one of the offered cups, and Bucky took the second. The strong oolong smelled of rose and lavender and had a slightly different taste than when Bruce prepared it. “Catnip. It’s calming for humans the way lavender and is in adults.” Clint nabbed one of the little brushes, the pot of primer, and the nearest mini - which really didn’t seem so miniature. 

“So what is that one?” Both of the other men chuckled and Bruce carefully set the brush into the jar of water to keep the bristles from drying and caking. 

“I’m going to go and get you the books. I would like to see what kind of character you’d play.”

“It’s a phase drake!” Clint’s excited expression said that he was in for a world of interest.

-

Three weeks had passed, and the three men, with a bonus Maria, are sitting around Bruce’s coffee table again. Clint is describing the dungeon, when he reaches for the box of prepainted miniatures off to the side of him, neatly organized for the evening’s encounter. “And there, in the sarcophagus, you see the body of what looks to be a large, burly, slightly grotesquely maimed goblinoid.”

“I approach and sense for magic and evil.” Maria rolls a pair of d20s without looking, “And I would like to cast Summon I twice, for a celestial owl and a small viper.” She looks down and swears, “Make that one. The other fails by three.” They all know the rules surprisingly well, around him, so Bucky takes his cues from them, even as he has two copies of the player’s handbook open in front of him (spells up on his tablet and skills pages open in Clint’s hardcopy).

“I am going to search for traps and for hidden triggers or doors. Take ten if possible.”

“I would like to cast dancing lights at the far corner of the room, to better illuminate the room so I can put my torch out and ready my ocarina.” Bucky’s place as the support, the Bard, had been something that the higher level druid (maria) and the Ranger/rogue (Bruce) had been thankful to find during last week’s encounter (and even higher level Darcy, who had been too busy helping in Jane's lab to join this session). 

“Sorry man. Alright, I’d like you to roll 3d20 for me, Bruce. Maria, you sense evil, and magic. Also, you and Bucky, roll a spot, because Bruce’s back is turned to search the east wall for a door.”

“Oh. Oh no. Bye, friend.” Bruce actually gives a sad wave to the little mini on the glass table they have the map drawn onto. 

-

Bucky has taken up some of Steve’s artsy pastime, and is sitting with Darcy, watching a gratuitously cheesy romcom with her toes crammed under his ass. He’s got a good excuse to be tuned out. He hears the pair of men who had formed a seemingly predestined bond over overzealous New Yorkers with too much fight - Sam and Rhodey - coming into the lounge area. He feels Sam coming, by simple nature of familiarity, and shifts so that when the man flops onto him, curling around his shoulders, it doesn’t jostle his work. 

“Holy shit, is that a bugbear?” The bright happy laugh rattles out of the startled friend. 

“Yes, and I’m going to have Darcy’s paladin defending my useless fucking bard. This is why I told you to come hang out a few days ago.” He continues working at the lines, then, satisfied, starts making the circles and lines that would create the basic form of the knightly lady in question.

“Oh, man, who’s all playing? I’d kill to roll up a character and spend a few hours lost in Greyhawk or the Temple again.” Rhodey’s voice is excited. 

“That would be Bruce, later. He’s taking over since Clint is off to places unseen. And he didn’t leave notes, so we are probably running a classic setting. Though, honestly, it’ll probably be through Baldur’s Gate or Castle Ravenloft.” Darcy doesn’t bother looking away from the screen where the couple are doing the “big argument” sequence. “And Jamie, I swear to Alethar if you draw form-fitting armor on her I _will. Eat. You_.”

“First, Alethar isn’t a legit god, you reskinned Pelor and made him a lush. second, you had no problem with eating me last night. Besides, that’s really impractical, since that basically gives the enemy leverage to kick you in the chest and use your chestplate against you as a metal bone-rending wedge.” The fact that Bucky is still focused on what he’s doing with his pencil is a huge surprise to everyone who have followed the first two intruders in.

“That’s why you go with the tried-and-true-”

“Anthony Edward, if you imply that I should draw a chainmail bikini onto a paladin I’ll feed you to the player of her.”

“I just got middle-named by a 98-year-old nerd. What is my life even…” Tony gripes and prods at Pepper. “Make him stop, oh dragoness.”

This gets a round of laughter from everyone, even as the woman rolls her eyes. Bruce, standing next to her, just chuckles. “Come on, you haven’t ever played?”

“No, I was one of the cool kids in school.”

“Says the weirdo that graduated college at seventeen and began running an inherited multi-billion dollar company around the time he could legally drink. Shut up you dweeb.” Rhodey’s teasing goes a long way to show how close he and the other MIT graduate actually are when it doesn’t outright cut at the other man. 

“So, Since Maria is out, and I’m DMing, we are short the druid and the cross-classed rogue/ranger. Got a paladin, a bard.” Bruce strides over to peek over Sam and Bucky’s shoulders at the drawing, before heading to the stairs that lead down a floor to the several apartments that various Avengers live in. “Eberron. I will accept psionics, because I am feeling particularly masochistic.”

As Bruce disappears the others burst into chatter. Thor and Steve are both trying to figure out what’s going on, Tony complains but grudgingly reads over one of the manuals that Rhodey pulls up for him (“Man, embrace google drive, it’s actually useful.”) so that he can ‘help’ his girlfriend create a character.

-

Bruce actually makes a terrifying Game Master, and is far more effective at mediating and quelling and fucking over all the players. Natasha, Thor, Steve, and Tony are all on the peripheral, listening, tinkering, and enjoying the wild adventure that the others are getting up to. The usual party is laid to the side, as a new questing party of heroes are dashing through Xen’drik and trying valiantly to do the right thing with a serious problem that the Church of the Silver Flame are presenting them.

Pepper’s shifter Ranger, Bucky’s dwarf Cleric, Sam’s warforged Fighter, Darcy’s human Barbarian, and Rhodey’s were-touched elf Sorcerer and Jane’s kalashtar Rogue are desperately trying to keep from getting arrested Bucky turns to the women’s characters, and in the worst highly-intoxicated-brogue to yell “Briarlane, Stonefoot, now would be a great time t’ flip yer wigs!”

So Pepper, who is next in Initiative, declares her shift, and promptly has her character headbutt one of the Church’s clerics right off the bridge with a critical success. “Sometimes, I wish I had gone with a razorclaw to just rip them in half.” She giggles and accepts the fistbump that Darcy offers her as she lands a similar move, a shoulder-check, and sends another enemy stumbling off with a moderate roll of 21 (her strength mod when she’d rolled had been obscene, and the additional ability points had made it worse).

“Hell yeah, hashtag murder hobo life!” Darcy wiggled in her seat and moved the minis around as necessary.

The night’s play ends around four in the morning when Bruce ejects himself from the table (and almost flips it), trying to control his hiccupping laughter and the way his skin seems slightly too pale and tight, Darcy falls out of her chair, barely breathing through her laughter-induced shakes, Pepper sprints for a bathroom, and Sam and Bucky just sort of roll around on the floor, making vague gurgling noises while they clutch their sides.

“Oh come on, I had the chance to make a really good joke, I couldn’t not take it, Tony!”

“RHODES! NO! Normally, this is supposed to go the other way! YOU NAMED HIM PEPE! I should have- I should have seen this coming. I should have SEEN THIS COMING!” Tony, at this point, goes to stand, but suddenly collapses onto Thor laughing. 

It takes Steve and Thor several minutes to explain to Maria, Clint, and Fury, who have just gotten back to the Tower, what had led the evening to the players rounding a corner and (a very unsuspecting) Bruce asking Rhodey to describe what they see of his yet-unencountered transformed were-touched character. 

Neither man really got the joke, but in unison restated what the Marine had said to spark the pandemonium. “I have one thing to say: _Le Pew_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, Spencer, you are an asshole and this isn't the response that came to mind, but you know what actually was...
> 
> For those unsure, yes, Rhodey is a were-skunk, and he referenced Pepe Le Pew. Blame my usual beta, [Kelsey](http://www.clawdee.tumblr.com/) for this. Because the joke I originally had written in was a bad cheese pun that would have actually probably really pissed Steve and Bucky off a lot and caused a lot of meta-gaming. 
> 
> Yes, I am a DM and a Player, this is pretty much a watered-down version of any table I have been at/group I have been part of. And I really don't know where the Clint/Bruce came from. Also, I feel Bruce on psionics.
> 
> Come howl at me over on [tumblr](http://www.crownsandashes.tumblr.com), friends!


End file.
